His chest heaved a hastily drawn breath as he continued forward to his target - the buildings had thinned out into a series of hazardous walkways that over arched and over looked each other, that in turn then fed into ascending and descending corridors that would have been a death trap to infantry months ago. Now the entire area was nothing more than a glorified graveyard of the soldiers who once through to both assault and defend it. Littered with long dead corpses and debris. This was the point where his mission would take him down into the intermediate levels of the complex - he pulled his targeting reticule up and away from his eye and reached for the night vision and IR apparatus from the mounting above his helmet. The world outside grey gray and then dark, and as he went further down his vision was bathed further and further into the sickening green glow of the machine eyes that now covered his face.

Another long, drawn out breath escaped from his lips - it was colder down here, where powerlines and coolant systems for the planets former machine population intertwined into a vast and endless web of planetary veins delivering life and information on a scale never before seen in the galaxy. Unfortunately nothing like this would ever be seen again.

He moved ahead in silence, his IFF transponder had long since lost the transmission signals of his comrades - they had moved towards the massive generator in the distance through similar mid-level tunnels, the piping and concrete mashing any and all signals between them into a mulch of lost electronic noise.

This would not dull his senses however - in a world of dark tunnels and half-shadows he moved forward with his rifle at the shouldered position, it was not long before he was greeted with a reason for his wary stance.

Ahead of him, a flicker of movement - a shuffle of faint sound ahead as black moved on black in the distant terminal point of his section of the never ending, always twisting spaces.

He was no longer alone.

He tightened up his stance and his footing and raised his assault laser to bear - the iron sights matching with the targeting marker projected onto the inside of his night vision sensors as he crept forward, footstep by softly made footstep towards his prey with his finger just hovering over the top of the trigger; waiting for another target to come into view.

A slow and tense minute later his vigilance was rewarded - he ducked into the corner of some overhanging pipes as he focused the telescopic lenses as far as they could focus and several figures emerged into his view.

Black armour, interspaced with flak jacket material, black helmets with silver gray visors and solid looking bulky rifles with large ammunition reserves beneath them, chain fed into the weapon itself. They moved cautiously with a professional air to them - checking their movements as the trio passed him by. It had been a long time since he had last seen them in person on the ground level - they must have been the trooper compliment of the crashed carrier that would have been much closer to him now than it was when he made landfall in the events that seemed like half a lifetime ago.

Immortal Terrorkhan troopers - the frontline elite of shocktroopers, armed with heavy armour and heavy flachette cannons - serious heavy duty soldiers for what would have been a simple carrier vessel.

Unless it was not just another simple carrier vessel - considering it had managed to survive the entire orbital conflict, made it through the atmosphere without burning up or being destroyed by ground defences and then managed to crash in one piece and still be operational afterwards.

The thoughts raced through his head as realisations slotted into place.

The Immortal carrier planned to be here, as a glorified dropship.

They had planned to be here.

The whole time.

From the very start.

His mind raced again - this was bad, this shit was very bad. Because if they had planned to be here from the start then they had a fucking objective, and if they had an objective - then he was going to have a very bad day.

In the distance ahead, one trooper watched warily ahead of his position, the other looked down his corridor with his rifle at arms, and the third was shuffling his feet as the trio seemed to be caught in some kind of half-muttered conversation. He watched as they then moved away from their position and dissipated down the other side of the T junction he was on the middle arm of. For a moment he breathed a sigh of relief, but stayed in his place and waited - looking down at the military precision watch on his left arm - as the traditional analogue arms slipped around the clockface slowly without making so much as a ticking sound as he watched - waiting to see if his patience would play out.

Eventually, a torturous six and a half minutes later, it did - as another faceless trio, or perhaps the same faceless trio of Terrorkhan troopers appeared at the end of the T-junction and stayed for a fair few moments, scanning for targets, muttering conversation and then moving off again.

A patrol route set up in the mid-level tunnels and walkways in proximity to the Immortal carrier that sat between him and his target goal, the TSOC generator complex.

He sighed inwardly, not an impossible goal to overcome - but a difficult one, and a goal with little to know point, especially considering his . . .

What?

Why am I here?

What do you mean why am I here? We both know why we are here.

Wait a damn second.

Why the fuck is there a "we"?!

Panic rose within him, he knew damn well that he should not make a sound unless he would be detected by the enemy - but his head felt as if it was trapped in the thickness of an endless fog, he was not alone in his head and he suddenly found himself unable to remember why he was here, what he was supposed to be doing or where he was going.

Lord Shadowscythe shot forth into a sickening green light as he blinked eyelids that did not belong to him - his vision settled and his mind rested into what was the most bizarre case of deja-vue in his entire life.

Tsoc homeworld? Check.

Generator Complex, Check.

Immortal troopers, Check.

What the hell are you doing a checklist for? Hurry up and kill them so we can destroy the objective.

Shut up Marine, I AM DRIVING NOW - I have no idea where or when I am - what the hell is happening.

The Immortals have taken this sy-

SHUT UP FOR A MINUTE - another group coming.

At least we can agree on something.

Six and a half minutes again - at least one trio on rotating patrols - this would make it easier to make a move. Lord Shadowscythe flexed unfamiliar fingers around the grips of the Assault laser as he prepared himself for what would need to be done.

Move up.

Acquire target, pull trigger, fire.

For a fucking Lord at least you aren't a pansy.

I thought I told you to shut up.

Hey - this is in our head, they cannot hear us.

He exhaled softly - the original owner of this body was at least right on that part.

Would you at least try for a second to think about this from my point of view?

And what would that be?

Just a short time ago, I was piloting a fucking Samurai in an underground cave base on a moon in the arse-end of nowhere and I should be dead. And now I'm here.

Oh - glorious maidens be - and now I get to be possessed by the GHOST of a Scythian Lord; go team me!

How about we both shut up for a moment and try and work together in the one head so we can both live through this mess.

Agreed.

He moved ahead slowly as the last patrol group passed him by - he moved into another half-section of cover as he waited, four minutes passed by in moving into the position alone, the next two and a half passed as he waited on baited breath until the next patrol group arrived.

Arrive they did, the trio stood in position as Lord Shadowscythe marked his shots on the three. Another silent breath in followed by another silent breath out. He pulled the trigger.

Blinding blue light lashed across the distance in less than a nanosecond, and the leading Terrorkhan's head exploded into a cloud of bloody gasses and mulch.

The next Terrorkhan trooper didn't have time to react as Lord Shadowscythe kept his finger on the trigger as he moved the sights down with his finger still on the trigger and a series of lashed shots traced a bloody arc down the troopers body - his flesh exploding outwards in par-broiled chunks.

Dead before he even hit the ground.

The third managed to back off around the corner and take cover as Lord Shadowscythe stood up and moved rapidly ahead as he splattered the corner ahead with fire - waiting for the Terrorkhan trooper to return fire.

Only he didn't - even when the opportunity presented itself, no reply ever came.

As he moved up to the corner, he arced around the turn quickly with the rifle ready to put the last soldier down under a wave of withering firepower.

Only to find the space where a third trooper should be completely empty.

Two voices in one head shared the same word together at the same time.

He moved onwards - fast and stealthy with all the professional grace of a man who had done this many, many times in his lifetimes. In truth - they where two men, two minds in one body driving forwards towards a goal that seemed almost as far away as it was when he arrived.

They arrived.

Shitting hell this is confusing.

The usual, singular monologue was now two separate parts occupying the same space - overlapping in places while different from each other in the rest. Another featureless corridor of pipes and valves to one side, and the same on another - somewhere the Immortals had been coming around on their patrols, and somewhere out there was his missing last man.

Together they made the body pause, there was no way back - the only way to move forward was to go forward. The only way to get through this was to do it.

A mutual consensus reached - the fast and cautious pacing began once more as they fell down the rabbit hole - each footstep brought him ever closer to the Immortal carrier.

Up ahead, another scuffle of movement, he froze for a moment to see no less than six Terrorkhan troopers setting up an entrenched position - setting up behind cover to give each other lines of sight down the entire length of the corridor.

No going forward in that direc-

FUCK

The rain of fire came from behind him, not in front of him like he expected - he turned and ducked to see another trio of Terrorkhan with their flachette cannons raised - firing indiscriminately in his direction - rounds bouncing off of his armour and the pipework around him. He reacted in the only way he could and dived flat to the floor before pulling himself to one side and firing his assault laser at the trio advancing on him.

As two paths of fire crossed - the other six that where now behind him opened fire as well. He could not hold his position - even Immortal weapons could hit a target like this even if they where inaccurate as hell. He looked up and aside and saw an alcove nearby - perfect cover to dive into and reforge his attack, or even his retreat.

The cascade of weapons fire stopped for a moment, a slight cough in their barrage - and he took his chance, he rolled to one side, righted himself and bolted into a hasty run while he tried to fire his rifle one-handed to the group behind him. His vision raced and blurred as the alcove arrived behind his back as he slammed his weight into it - his breathing fast and heavy as he brought his arm up and -

- FUCK! -

A knifeblade of pain erupted from the uncovered rear of his neck - something was in him, someone had stabbed him.

He dropped his rifle as his hands shot to the back of his neck and ripped out the offending object that was sending searing pain into his spine - he pulled them around to find a round, cylindrical item in his fingers ending in a hypodermic needle.

A needle empty of its contents.

He looked up and around to see the shape of the last Terrorkhan trooper emerge from thin air - a single man cloaking device, he had been waiting for him the entire time.

The world pulsed and blurred in his vision as his arms and legs became heavy - both sets of thoughts became slow and dark as he could feel his own pulse slowing down through his scalp.

Why the scalp for pitys sak . . . e . . .

He fell face first into the iron grating floor as the world went dark and he fell into forced unconsciousness.

The world seemed to scrape and slide beneath him as the darkness of being unconsciousness faded slowly back into the world of cold steels and grays - he was dimly aware of the hands holding his own, bound behind his back. He was unarmed and unarmored, being dragged down a corridor, long and dark into the distance.

Terrorkhan troopers.

He had been taken prisoner.

He was no longer in the network of catwalks and pipes beyond, the floor was too regular - the walls plated with solid metal plates spaced with orange and yellow terminal computer screens and holographics.

He raised his head just enough to see beyond, no crew or engineers to be seen, the ship was dead and empty on minimal power - a skeleton crew of advanced shock troopers and no signs of a goal or objective, not invading to conquer or destroy. It would seem the Immortal Modus operandi had been thrown clean out of the book, whoever the hell these guys where, they had a plan, and they had obviously not read the book on how this was supposed to go down.

Another corner turned, his feet continued to drag on the floor plating as his mind struggled to piece together the who, what, where, when, why and how - as he suddenly became aware of the other still within his mind. Memory burst into a flash of revelation as he realised that he was carrying the mind of an alleged Scythian Lord in his head, and a dead Lord at that.

He was the target, they where here for him.

Another corner turned, left then right - a staircase going up here or down there. He was too far into the belly of the beast here - too many Terrorkhan troopers had emerged from the nooks and cranny's of the so called ghost ship behind him, this ship was far from depopulated - and if what he had seen, it was far from damaged either.

A final terminus was reached, the doors before him opened to reveal a dimly lit space filled with holotanks and displays as Terrorkhan troopers filled every chair on every station, the room bustled with silent professionalism as the crew passed information from server to served, in just a glance the ship was operational but powered down - all waiting on the orders of one man.

The one man stood in the middle of the room.

He was older now, not just in years - but in mind and attitude. The heat that would normally emanate from his form had dulled to an orange simmer of cracks across former white bone - now gray and black, in patches from years of warfare. The cape and ostentatious battle armour shed in favour of simpler Terrorkhan battle flak armour complete with side arm on the leg. He turned and looked across at the captive form, eyes met across the room and Lord Warhead spoke.

"Lord Shadowscythe, its been a long time - its no good hiding in there, I already know you are in this marines head and I know what needs to happen next. If you are ready for a little chat, we have a lot to discuss . . . My old friend."

The Terrorkhan troopers behind him loosened his bonds enough for him to slip his hands free and he dropped to the ground on his knees, a haughty breath in and out relieved him of some of his aches from being bound but he still drew his hands to his wrists and tried to rub away the marks from the plas-steel restraints that held his arms behind him.

"Our time here is short, I really hope you have the original owner of that body kept well under control" Lord Warhead no less than announced to his counterpart.

"For a time" Lord Shadowscythe replied.

"Good, because what we thought was happening is not what it seemed - we are not in some grand war to save all of time and space. Something else is pulling the strings"

"What?"

"Look, its taken us six and a half years after you effectively died to piece together enough to even give you a hint as to what is going on behind the scenes - beyond our individual messing with the time-stream and beyond the effects of the Shraag, it's not easy to explain but something else is altering the universe on such a level that it is barely detectable unless you know the signs you are looking for."

"And those would be?"

"Well for one thing, you should be dead."

"Well I am sorry to disappoint"

"And that would be the second time you have said that"

"Wait a minute, what the hell are you going on about?"

"Imagine for a moment that all the universe was under your control, a mere thought of a whim would change the lives and actions of entire civilisations - and you used it, regularly. Changing entire swaths of the universe and re-writing past, present and future as you saw fit - over and over again as the idea of what should be, and what should not be changed as swiftly as a new concept entered your mind."

"Every poor man's god complex? what the hell are you getting at here?"

"Someone or something has been doing that to us - from the beginnings of the universe up to its apparently rapid end, by all rights not even you should exist - you where born, grew up in a noble Scythian family, enrolled in officers school, passed out - got almost blown to kingdom come and back again, betrayed by your leader and almost killed except for me - then we went on a jaunt to a Britannian moon and you where killed - except you where not killed and somehow your essence was thrown forward in time to another body here."

Lord Warhead paused for a moment in his usual, stereotypical style.

"Except when you died the timeline changed, the same way it changed when you came into existence, the same way it changed when you should have died, twice - once at the hands of the S.O.N.I monster and again on the Tiara moon, something interfered and somehow made you live - by all rights you should never have existed to begin with."

His demeanour changed for a moment as he shifted his weight on his feet and looked down for a moment, and then back up to look Lord Shadowscythe in the eyes.

"When the signs appeared - the best Immortal scientists in the universe had no idea what they where looking at, but the only way to describe it is a gap, a gap in reality that was always there. And then suddenly it was not, suddenly a person appeared - a lifetime from nowhere, past, present and future. Where no one should have existed there was suddenly you, and the entire universe changed to match. The worst part is, its not even you it counts towards, its your entire people. The Scythian empire never existed, and yet here it is - illustrious 50,000 year past and all, the Assyrians never existed either, yet here they are, The Genoans, The FALK, The TSOC, The Trattorians, Preatorians, United Systems Alliance - every single power in the universe suddenly appeared from nowhere and yet always existed - Even, us - The Immortals."

Lord Shadowscythe simply stood in silence as he let Warhead continue.

"In the timeline as you should know it, the Emperor should never have sent you on a suicide mission, he sent a blooming psionic marine called "Harkins" and he died in your place - the entire world of Genoad burned for that crime and the head of the Scythian Office of Naval Intelligence came within mere moments of being able to mind-control half the galaxy by forcing the Shraag to his will by burning the Genoan's psionics in a do or dare kamikaze attempt at controlling every sentient mind in the galaxy, I would say "spoilers" or some stupid shit like that, but if you know now what is to come you have a better chance at stopping it. Our people invaded and held Scythia itself and where doomed to extinction as a result. All in its place? A half-lived romance between you and a deck hand called "Kialya" you saved from death on our peoples first encounter with the Shraag - between the pair of you and your stockholm syndrome fuelled dry humping you saved and doomed the universe because our Emperor died along with yours as your world burned to ash - 30 billion dead in less than 5 hours, and the rest of the spiral arm of the galaxy followed after that . . . After that? Everything changed."

Lord Warhead stopped and turned his head down for a moment.

"Even these events here, are being written - literally fucking written by another, fate has been ripped out of our hands like some kind of cruel joke and paraded around the room like some kind of diseased corpse. Here and now is the turning point Shadowscythe - I have all the evidence you are about to ask for, but in turn - you have to help me, help me convince the younger me along with so many others to take back what should be ours. This war is no longer about fighting off the Shraag, extinction and annihilations where merely the backdrop - our entire future never even existed, its always been out of our hands and it is time to take it back."

He turned on his feet and yelled into the air like a madman - as if time and space itself would turn to his cause "YOU HEAR ME? ITS TIME TO TAKE OUR FATES BACK!"

His head ducked into his chest, and Lord Warhead breathed heavily as a Terrorkhan trooper approached with a data slate in hand, with a flick of the hand, Lord Warhead motioned him towards Lord Shadowscythe who took the Data Slate moments later.

"First of all, you need to see how your world ended - if we are to have any hope in not only saving, but freeing our universe. You need to see how it died."

The sea's evaporatedThough it comes as no supriseThese clouds we're seeingThey're explosions in the skyIt seems it's writtenBut we can't read between the lines

A sudden, hasty flash of FTL particles washed across the screen like a wave of fire - a satellite eye view of Scythia, a world with two moons an almost entirely urbanised - glittering between nearly a million orbital space stations, each the size of small cities holding massive populations, nearly a quarter of the entire Scythia system was born, raised and died in orbit without every touching foot on a genuine planet.

From what looked like endless FTL events, the Scythian Emperors forces emerged, mixed in with Assyrian, TSOC, Praetorian and even a fair few Immortal ships - each lining up into three groups between the Spirit of Ragnablok and the vast shape of the Emperors secret Shraag killing super weapon and a half built shape of a Diety Star Juggernaut.

The battle unfolded, long and bloody as the Emperors forces and the main Scythian forces battled throughout the system in half-caught camera footage - until the Shraag arrived between the two warring forces, and the Emperor watched as the super weapon he had built onto the front of the Ragnablok was shredded before his eyes.

The Emperor made an order that was utter insanity - somehow despite the future of the universe itself lying in the balance he ordered his other weapon to fire - the black non-euclidian mass of curves and shapes aligned its form and the non-wave of psionic power erupted from its form and the Shraags forces burned and died screaming.

The wave then continued, passing through the first of Scythia's moons - its orbital complexes and underground cities, and the glittering stars of the space stations between.

In blink of an eye, five billion lives flashed out of existence.

Then the Emperors half build Diety opened fire, burning out its reactors as it fired upon an impossibly huge version of the same ship - another Diety on the other side, which somehow survived the same blast and returned fire.

Half the Emperors fleet simply wavered away in a wave of blue-white fury as laser blasts and missiles passed between two titanic forces.

Which was exactly when the Immortals turned up.

This one world visionTurns us into compromiseWhat good's religionWhen it's each other we despise?Damn the governmentDamn their killingDamn their lies

HushIt's okayDry your eyes

The three way fight for dominance erupted into fire and death - Ion blasts crossed laser bombardment, antimatter missiles crossed with HIVE rounds, Antimatter projectors blasted through flachette rounds and every manner of death in between as yet more death spheres appeared - the Shraag committing the rest of its fledgling power to the titanic battlefield.

A vast black shape started to blot out the stars themselves, it was a ship - and from Lord Shadowscythes guess, an Immortal ship far larger than anything else he had ever seen - larger than most planets, forcing a hyperwave wake that decimated even battleships in its path as it arrived between camera feeds and satellite arrays.

He ventured only a moments guess at what it was though - a ship like that could only be one vessel, a vessel often hinted at but never proven, IMMORTALIS - The flagship of the Immortal Emperor himself.

Soulmates never dieSoulmates never dieSoulmates never dieSoulmates never die

Not even the Immortal flagship itself could survive the coming fire.

The outcome was blurred, as output feeds where destroyed.

Dieties from both sides opened fire.

The Shraag committed its forces into ramming Death spheres into the flagship, closer feeds picking up the insecticide thralls spreading out from the impact points into the hull of the mighty vessel itself.

Then gouts of fire from the Fist of Scythia as the Emperors flagship exploded.

Another deity opened fire -the source of the shot unknown, but it fired onto Scythia itself - ripping through orbital defences and into some kind of vast shield which never existed as far as Lord Shadowscythe knew but it seemed to hold for just a moment before it faded.

The blast wiped half a continent away, Countless lives ended in an attosecond of fury as the resulting spread of antimatter annihilated the atmosphere and breached the planets crust,

Over the next 38 minutes the rest of Scythia died screaming as the planetary instability and atmospheric damage burned away the air itself and ignited the ground as earthquakes and tectonic damage ended all life on the Scythian homeworld - the sheer damage to the planets mass threw off satellites and space stations as they plummeted into orbit or slammed into each other at inescapable velocities,

Just after this the Immortal flagship exploded from the inside out - a self-destruct mechanism set off for reasons unknown and the last satellite feed died.

After that? Another feed kicked in, an outer system satellite displayed the damage area from the resulting battle as the entire Scythian system winked out of existence like a dying candle.

After that - the feed withdrew to a galactic map as system after system winked out and Lord Shadowscythe looked up to Lord Warhead.

"Everything you have just seen is real, it is our past now - but we know where it can be changed. If we can pull this off, this does not need to be your future . . . " Lord Warhead spoke with a sense of solemn designation in his voice.

Lord Shadowscythe returned the datapad to Lord Warhead, his fingers turned white to the knuckles and the blood had drained from his face.

"What I need to you do, is using this second chance - help me with one goal, but stop me in another" Lord Warhead continued a moment later.

"When you re-emerge in your timeline, you need to make sure you get as much Cavorite as you can towards the goal of the Shraag killer in the phasic bubble to withdraw it from its hiding space and into realspace. In my timeline you died and we needed to attack another three Britannian outposts which caused a rift between us and them, turning it into a three way war. We need to keep the Britannians on our side for long enough for Hearcer to discover the full story behind the start of your conflict and then approach them directly. Which means you need to make sure that I get all the Cavorite I need to complete that goal, and then betray me in another. You need to make sure I fail in stopping Lord Hearcer revealing the full truth. This means you have to destroy the Immortal Brittanian alliance."

"In order to do this, in your next mission you will be assaulting the Unbound, to steal its antimatter reactor. You need that reactor as part of the greater puzzle to withdraw the Shraag killer into realspace and then powering it for the timejump in five years time.I will already know this plan, but the earlier version of me is far more petty and selfish than I am now. My personality is made from Shards, pieces of myself shattered in the fall of Fico and the shard of myself you are allied with is interested in conquest first, self preservation second. Regardless of what I might tell you. I am going to try and kill Lord Hearcer but fail, instead I am going to destroy his files and intel on what happened aboard the Solaris, including a log recording of the Immortal vessel present during the attack. My vessel."

Lord Warhead turned to face Shadowscythe again.

"You need to stop me, by any means necessary. Our alliance has to fall for High Admiral Timken to turn against me, and lend his forces against the Immortals in the Fall of Scythia. In doing this the timeline will change and it will present your Emperor with the single window with which to achieve his plan."

"Which is what?" Shadowscythe replied.

"We don't know" Warhead stated with a flat tone.

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"This is where the convergence point reaches its apex - all I can do is try and change the past, your future - so all the piece are in place for us to survive this. The Spirit of Ragnablok, The Emperor, Our Emperor, The Shraag, Hearcer, Harkins, You, Me, Kialya - everything has to fall into place for us to come out of the convergence unscathed. What happens beyond it, we don't know, Entity doesn't know. Our Scryers and psionics don't know - a future exists. What that future is however, remains to be seen. But any world in which life survives the cataclysm is better than living in a multitude of universes with reality dying around us."

"Is there a point where I need to act?"

"Yes, a very specific one - onboard the bridge of the Unbound. I am going to have Hearcer at gunpoint - and fail to kill him as he will unleash his personal tamed beast Karsus. Hearcer will flee and that version of Karsus will be killed by you. During that time I will download and destroy Hearcers logs from a nearby terminal. You must stop me. Destroy the terminal, set Karsus on me, something, anything. Kill me if you have to. But I have to fail."

"And what will happen next?"

"Play it right, and I might not kill you - If all else fails, you may need to tell me about what happens here and now. I probably won't believe you but I will pause long enough for you at least prove your bullshit. After that? Hearcer will push his evidence even harder from the recent attempt on his life. He'll brush off the loss of the reactor as an attempt at terrorism on behalf of the Immortals and ignore the other pieces of the puzzle falling into place."

"And how do you intend to get me there?"

"Well that part is simple in comparison" Lord Warhead spoke with an all too familiar, malice filled grin "I'm going to kill you"

There are many many things in this plotline dude. And like, four entire stories before this.

-----

"Wait a minute, what the hell?" Lord Shadowscythe hastily replied as he took himself back a step.

"Meh, don't worry about it - its not like I'm going to put a bullet in the back of your head or some bullshit like that. Cavorite grinding against Cavorite caused the reaction that sent your mind here to this place, into the head of the Marine you are currently holding hostage. Like trying to put a shard of metal in between two grindstones already revolving against each other you just got shot through the arsehole of the universe and into the closest lump of dullard concrete." Lord Warhead replied as if every single word in his conversation was somehow average, somehow normal. "Besides, its not like dying hurts anyway, I've done it dozens of times."

Shadowscythe could feel the strings of the other mind inside his head rebell against his control. The original owner of the body was trying to rest control back into himself. Lord Shadowscythe could feel the hatred, the disbelief and the unyielding want to put a bullet right into the skull of the ever hated Warhead, Ender or Empires and bring at least one small part of the repeated cycle of death and destruction to an end.

He pushed his efforts to the front of his mind and forced the other back down for a little while longer, enough to find out what little more he could from the apocalypse laid out before him.

"So if you aren't just going to kill me here, what are you going to do?" He asked as Lord Warhead was passed a dataslate by one of the nearby Terrorkhan troopers.

"It's simple, first I need you to hold this" Warhead spoke as he reached into his the leg pocket of the Terrorkhan fatigues he was wearing and pulled out an all to familiar orb of the Britannian super-weapon material, and placed the lump of refined Cavorite in Shadowscythes hand.

"And then we need to copy what happened at the Tiara moon" He finished his sentence with almost a tinge of hope in his tone of voice as he turned and began to pace towards a nearby service elevator door, Lord Shadowscythe motioned his feet to move as he began to follow. Steel grate doors opened and closed as the elevator descended into the ship, passing cold dark metal walls and level after level of stale air and the ghosts of purpose.

Eventually the Elevator came to a halt and the steel grate doors opened to a short hangar bay that had been cleared of its usual retinue of Magog fighters and varying technicians and crews. Instead the centre of the room has been taken up by a vast circle floor plate that was surrounded by inlaid Cavorite orbs at 10 degree intervals, linked by endless wires and power cables spreading in every direction like lost trails of twine, linking up to capacitors, transistors and generators, all attended by TerrorKhan troopers overseeing the various stages of some kind of vast, unfathomable task.

He looked down to the orb in his hand, Cavorite against Cavorite, Grindstone against Grindstone - a catapult through time that would return him, mind, body and soul - to the point where he had "died" to begin with. A second chance to save reality from its end.

A part of his mind seemed to tug away, another pulled towards - as if he had no choice but to keep walking towards the centre of the circle, holding the Cavorite in his left hand, feeling its reassuring coolness against his skin. Somehow all of this was meant to be.

The other screamec against him, desperate to move fingers, tug at arms and legs, move feet, screaming against the other that had joined his mind, regain control of his body and murder every Immortal trooper in the room. Feeble cries lost against the tides of time. He was lost in the swath of foam, a body to be moved by another force.

Lord Warhead moved over to another point in the room, watching over another Terrorkhan trooper for just a moment as vast energies began to build, from generators to capacitors, transistors and twisted miles of cable. The Cavorite inlaid stones of the circle began to glow with energy as the process began.

"Remember, remember what you need to do - and we may all survive the coming fire" Lord Warhead spoke as the final system generation messages cropped up on datapad slides. The air began to ionise and turn orange as arcane energies erupted, and all was lost to white fire.

"No. The nature of the multiverse is like a book flipped open at every page at the same time - even what you could hear then was beyond context - "

Not if I can help it͍̫̮͕̝̦͉A҉ ̪͎͔̙̟t͏̭̳̯̼̩͚̤i̙̮͝me ̗̰̟̬̩̫̯̀j͍̦͠ͅu̸̩m̕p̱͉ ̟̙̻̮̙͈h͞ḛ̝̯͎͙re,͖̝̟͚́ ͈͖̰̫̼̪a̪͉̜͕̳̖ ̨̝̩͔̠̖͙r͚̫̫̝̙̪̜e̗̖a̯̘̣l̰̗̘͔̮̖͖i̲t҉̝̺̩̳̭̝̜y̫͓ ̲͈̳͕̬c̪̳̥̟͚a̘͈̥̭͖͘s̖̠͍͇͟ͅc̵̫̟͖͎ͅa͇͇̜̕ͅd̫͔̗̱̱ę̳̦͓͕̗̜ͅ ̙͇̹̻́ͅt̢h̶̫̖̫͍e̜͕̼̫̙̭͞r̺͍̳͜e҉̻̱̼.̡̯͈̟̝̫

" - you can feel it, can't you? The walls of fate are falling down."

"Stop being so fucking cryptic god damn you! Enough riddles! too many have died for this!"

"You, the bloodied warrior, or him - the raging mind. The other that has given all and the maiden from the beginning. You have all had your paths changed by something beyond your compreh-"Do you even understand how much we have lost?̞̯͖S͙͟p̭̟̠͈͘i̭̥͎̙̱͖̱r̦̥̗i͓t͕͕͍͖̮̗͘ ̕O̲͇͞f̤̗̼̤̯̰͟-̰̫̩

" - well if you are going to be nothing but impertinent then here is the ultimatum. This is the last stop between worlds. None of them can stop what has happened - but some can stop the end of all thi-"